A ground breaking discovery has been made, which one day might put an end to drug resistant bacteria. Scientists from the of University of Wisconsin-Madison have designed an edible version of CRISPR.
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are segments of prokaryotic DNA containing short, repetitive base sequences. These play a key role in a bacterial defence system, and form the basis of a genome editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas9 that allows permanent modification of genes within organisms.
The edible CRISPR probiotic could target specific bacteria, making it more effective than antibiotics or could be combined with an antibiotic to lower antibiotic resistance.
Bacteria have the ability to evolve antibiotic resistance genes. Antibiotic resistance occures when bacteria changes or produces substances that reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, in the near future. It is a threat that continues to grow every day! Scientists are desperately trying to find a better way to fight drug resistant bacteria like Clostridium difficile, which causes fatal infections in hospitals and nursing homes.
CRISPR is the worlds most precise and efficient gene editing technology at the moment. Scientists have creating a probiotic cocktail that patients can swallow as a liquid or pill.
The pill contains a bacteriophage. A virus that targets bacteria capable of carrying a synthetic DNA or RNA message to the bacteria. The virus implants the "message" in to the bacteria, making it slice its own genetic material.
Currently this probiotic is in infant stages, and is yet to be tested on animal. However studies have been made, that prove the effectiveness of bacteriophage-delivered CRISPR in killing bacteria.
The downside is that the CRISPR pill kills the gut microbial community, the bacteria are called normal flora.
If the bacterial colonies are out of balance, a number of problems may result.
Such drugs will be very specific to the user, they could be made to target single specific bacteria, while leaving the normal flora of the body alive. CRISPR might become world’s most effective gene editing tool, but also the best bacteria-killing technology available.
However, it still has a long way to go !
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Source: https://futurism.com/this-crispr-pill-could-replace-antibiotics/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokaryote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
Argh I was discussing this last week but couldnt remember any of the details. I wish you posted it earlier!
Thanks tho, now I can enjoy in retrospect
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Thank you for this very interesting article. It has been advertised on our chat channel (and upvoted).
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That's putting it lightly... the scientific community is only just beginning to understand how interwoven our microbiome is with our body, and how intimately its composition effects our health. Perhaps using CRISPR would be a good way to target a very specific sequence found in only one type of bacteria... but we better be damn sure there isn't off target cutting and effects on non desired species before this is anywhere close to feasible. CRISPR as a safe and useful technology is still a ways off, regardless of how much we wish it wasn't. Certainly a blazingly hot area of research right now.
I couldn't agree more! Didn't want to get in much detail! Thanks for reading!